


You Make It Easy

by RamonaDecember



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: (minor) angst with a happy ending, M/M, Modern AU, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, fear of commitment, military!cullen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-28 12:17:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19812145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RamonaDecember/pseuds/RamonaDecember
Summary: Cullen has never been interested in anyone for more than a few kisses, but after one too many bad memories from his time with the Marines, he finds he doesn’t even really want that anymore. His new civilian job gives him a good way to focus on anything but a lingering sense of loneliness buried under hours of working himself into exhaustion.Cassandra, however, is having none of it and badgers him mercilessly until he finds something to do that isn’t work, so mostly out of spite, Cullen starts to play chess at the local park.





	You Make It Easy

**Author's Note:**

> my contribution to last month's pride month shenanigans over at [Herald's Rest](https://discord.gg/WpPAGQJ).  
> prompt idea from dear, dear [tiki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tklivory/pseuds/tklivory).  
> updated/edited/minorly added on to since being posted there.

If Cullen isn’t careful, he can still hear it all. Shouting. Gunfire. Even the distinctly annoying squeak of his bunkmate's bed as he tossed and turned, likely seeing in sleep the same things that kept Cullen awake now. 

For months, it was all Cullen was left with—the memories. He’d chose not to renew his contract with the Marines, chose to return to civilian life instead, but it left him with much more free time on his hands than he was used to, than he knew what to do with. So with nothing else to consume his focus as he sat around his apartment, the memories did just that with his mind. 

The apartment itself probably didn’t help. Cullen had done little to change it from the state it was in when he first rented it. It took him forever to even get a TV to put in the living room so he’d stop sitting on the couch he’d acquired from a friend who was getting rid of it, endlessly staring at the scuffed paint job that he hadn’t bothered to touch up after moving in. 

The only thing he _had_ splurged on was a nice new bed. So many nights of sleeping on worn cots and squeaky bunks or even right on the ground had led him to indulge in that one thing. Maybe, Cullen thought, he could finally get a good rest if he just had the right mattress. It didn’t quite seem to be the ticket.

“Have you considered… Decorating?” Cassandra asked one of the first few times she had come to visit. She poked through the apartment, trying to keep her judgment in check, but her facial expressions always tended to betray how she was really feeling. “Maybe hang up a photo or two?”

As Cullen’s longest standing friend, she thought she had a right to be… concerned for him. He hadn’t been the same since coming back home. Cullen had cut himself off from most people and holed up in his modest and frankly lonely apartment, doing lord only knows what with his time. Certainly not making the place feel homey.

Cassandra’s attempts to draw Cullen out of the apartment were never very successful. Invites to grab a coffee or a drink were usually met by short texts that simply read _can’t today_. At least, she supposed, he didn’t lie and say he was ‘busy.’ But ‘can’t’ was more worrisome. Cassandra worried about what _else_ Cullen ‘can’t’ do on certain days. Can’t sleep, can’t eat, can’t even bring himself to get out of bed… 

It troubled her, and it’s what led Cassandra to try to set up a job interview for Cullen—he desperately needed to get out of that apartment. Cullen had mentioned once on Cassandra’s prompting that one of the things he liked about the military was that it created a sense of _accountability_. She thought a regular job might at best, at least give him a little bit of that same feeling, and at the very least, it was a minimum of eight hours that he wouldn’t be sitting around brooding.

Cullen had gone and got a civil engineering degree before deciding to follow in his father’s footsteps and running off to join the Marines for the better part of the last decade, so when Cassandra heard that the engineering firm her friend Josephine ran HR at was looking for a new hire, she tried to put in a good word—and a newly polished resume—for Cullen.

He was a perfect fit, nailing the interview despite what Josephine later related to Cassandra as his rather… _down to earth_ approach to everything. Cullen threw himself headlong into the job. There was always drafting to be completed, deadlines to be met, and it gave him plenty of overtime and work to bury his thoughts under. But that was part of the problem. Cullen was burying himself in his work in the name of not having to remember.

\--

“What about that Trevelyan girl from your kickboxing class, Cass,” Varric asked. “Erin or something?”

“Evelyn,” Cassandra corrected. “But I said he needs a hobby, not a girlfriend.” The exasperation was starting to win out in her voice.

“A girlfriend can be a hobby. They sure take up your time like one.” Varric’s laugh was cut short by a grunt after Cassandra punched him, a little too hard to be considered ‘playfully,’ in the arm.

Cullen was really starting to regret meeting the pair for a drink after work. All they had done so far was gab on about him like he wasn’t even there. If he knew this was how it was going to go, he would have stayed later at work, tried to finalize part of a project that was due next week.

“I don’t date,” Cullen said firmly, ignoring the furrowed brows it caused in both of his friends. He didn’t get close to people, period. Getting close to people meant finding new ways to disappoint a person, it meant the apparent inevitability of _losing_ —Cullen sighed at his own thoughts.

Cassandra and Varric were the exceptions. He knew them _before_ , and much to Varric’s insistence, Cullen was quote, ‘stuck with them.’

And speaking of ‘before,’ even before the military Cullen hadn’t been particularly interested in dating. He’d go out with someone here and there, but nothing ever seemed to stick, not past a handful of dates at least. Cullen wouldn’t be able to tell you the last time he’d actually had what would be considered a girlfriend.

Now, it didn’t seem fair to put whatever he’d become in the past years onto someone else.

“Then what about the kickboxing class itself?” Varric suggested, pulling Cullen away from his thoughts.

“I think I’ve had enough combat for a while.”

“You’re really not making this easy, Curly. If you’re not a lover _or_ a fighter, then what are you?”

Cullen sighed, threw back the best of his beer. “It’s not like I asked you to do this,” he said with a vague gesture toward the two and whatever this scheming was. 

Cassandra had already pushed him into getting out of the apartment more, but now she didn’t seem content to stop there. A hobby is what she insisted he needed. A club of some kind. Whatever would get him to actually interact with people, be more social again. It’s not like Cullen had ever been anyone’s definition of an extrovert, but ‘soft spoken but charming wallflower’ had now become ‘gruff and closed-off recluse.’ Coming out to the bar was a step, but it was like pulling teeth to get Cullen to agree to even that. 

“Just… Think about it,” Cassandra told Cullen, giving his shoulder an awkward pat.

\--

It probably didn’t count as a proper hobby in Cassandra’s eyes, but it should make her happy to know that Cullen had been spending more time in the park near his apartment lately. He liked the fresh air, made him feel a little less claustrophobic, seemed to clear some of the cobwebs from his head.

Cullen would walk—jog, if he was feeling ambitious—the path around the pond, or sit and watch owners playing fetch with their dogs in the grassy areas, wondering if maybe he should hit up the nearest shelter himself. 

On some days, like today, the chess players caught his attention. There was a cemented over area that had a small pavilion with some picnic tables, and in the open area next to it were several public chess boards. 

Cullen would perch himself on the stone half-wall that surrounded the area, watching the players that occasionally dotted the boards, or those that sat at the tables with fold out ones they’d brought from home. Mostly old men, a few equally old ladies, hardly ever anyone under the age of sixty.

“Do you play?” a voice asked, startling Cullen.

His head whipped to the side, whole body tensing, eyes coming to rest on the man leaning over from the other side of the wall, elbows resting on top of it. He had a lazy smile under a ridiculous curling mustache and he looked expectant as he awaited a response from Cullen.

“You can’t do that,” Cullen said flatly, forcing himself to relax. “You can’t sneak up on people like that.”

Cullen was only met with raised eyebrows and a drawled, “My… apologies.”

Silence. But the man didn’t budge, didn’t look away. Cullen realized he never answered the question.

“I play, just… not recently,” he finally said.

“Would you like to?” the man asked. “None of these old coots like to play me anymore. I think it’s because the ladies like me better than them.” One side of his mouth curled up as he looked up at Cullen, something akin to mischief sparkling in his silvery eyes.

“It’s because you cheat,” one of the ‘old coots’ called from the board he was playing at.

The man finally ripped his eyes from Cullen’s, scowling at the old guy. “You’re not supposed to sell me out so easily, Gordon,” he grumbled. “I’m hurt.” 

Cullen surprised himself, letting out a quiet chuckle at the exaggerated pout. It had the man smiling back up at him.

“I’m Dorian, by the way,” Cullen was told. “So what do you say… Care for a match?”

“Do you cheat as much as they say?” Cullen asked, and this time it was his turn to raise an eyebrow.

There was that sparkle in Dorian’s eyes again. “There’s only one way to find out.”

\--

Cassandra doesn’t think chess in the park counts as ‘joining a club.’ “That’s something you can play alone,” she stresses. And play silently. The opposite of what she was trying to accomplish.

“But I don’t,” Cullen pointed out.

Her mouth only pressed into a line before saying, “Grumpy elderly men aren’t exactly the company you need.”

“They’re not _all_ old,” Cullen said. “There’s… There’s one person that I play with most. He has to be about my age.”

Cullen was hesitant to even tell her that much, didn’t want her to read too much into it—that he was spending extended amounts of time with a singular person. Sure enough, she arched one eyebrow up, but at least she didn’t comment on the flush creeping up his neck. He thanked whatever gods that Varric hadn’t arrived at the bar yet, because he certainly would have.

He had hoped that would be enough to satisfy Cassandra, but it never was with someone like her.

“So this chess partner,” she began, eyeing Cullen over her pint in a way that she thought wasn’t obvious, but very much so was. “What do you know about… him.” 

There was far too much emphasis on that last word for Cullen’s liking. “Cassandra…” he warned. He knew exactly what she was getting at. Cullen had never actually confirmed an interest in a ‘him’ before, but he’d never really shot the allegations down either. Inquiring minds and all that… He wasn’t trying to confirm an interest in _anyone_.

“It’s not like that,” he said with finality. And not a moment too soon, as Varric had just strolled through the door.

\--

And Cullen kept trying to tell himself that it really _wasn’t_ ‘like that.’ But Dorian always seemed to find a way to complicate that notion. 

It was in the way that he would give him that sly grin every time Cullen caught Dorian watching him, as if he wasn’t ashamed to have been caught. It was in the way Dorian seem to purposefully brush their fingers together when they were setting up the chess board or ‘accidentally’ knock their knees together underneath it. And mostly, it was in the way that in all other aspects, Dorian seemed to uncomplicate things.

Chess with Dorian was easy. He somehow dragged more chatter out of Cullen than anyone in recent history had ever managed to, but he never pushed Cullen on topics that clearly made him uncomfortable. Like anything about his time in the military. The way Cullen became entirely withdrawn at even the most basic questioning hadn’t gone unnoticed by Dorian and he would seamlessly transition to another topic, like asking about Cullen’s current job, instead.

Dorian seemed to know the days when Cullen simply needed to not talk at all, too. Usually on days following nights where Cullen’s nightmares had been particularly draining, or on days when the memories seemed to choke him too much to get out anything other than a polite greeting and request for a game from Dorian, which Dorian would always agree too with an easy smile and a sweeping gesture toward the nearest board.

Cullen would fall silent shortly after, focused only on the pieces on the board before them, so silent Dorian would let him be. But there was always the toe of his boot, rubbing gently, subtly at Cullen’s calf, trying to ease whatever the unspoken hurt was that Cullen felt. Cullen, for his part, pretended he didn’t notice.

Because to acknowledge that, to acknowledge the part of himself that wanted to ask Dorian if they might perhaps see each other somewhere other than the park sometime, would be to complicate things. And Cullen, who’s life seemed to be one damned complication after the next, needed for Dorian to remain the one easy constant.

\--

Dorian didn’t seem to have the same reservations. “So when you’re not at work, or here letting me chat your ear off, where does one find Cullen Rutherford?” Dorian asked one afternoon. “And might you want to take me there some time?”

It was so roundabout that Cullen didn’t dare say that Dorian was asking him for a date, but he floundered for an answer regardless. The first place that came to mind was the bar he was starting to semi-regularly frequent with Cassandra and Varric, but the idea of running into either of them there with Dorian at his side was enough to make Cullen want to go literally anywhere else.

They settled upon the summer festival in the park in a few days. The park was agreeable. It was neutral territory. It was safe.

And as they strolled amongst the festival booths bearing local crafts and artwork, Cullen found himself relaxing more, found himself unable to remember why he thought this might be a bad idea in the first place. The reminder came shortly after the fireworks started that evening. 

They’d settled in the grass on a small slope as it began to get dark. Children wove around them, little hands reaching out to try to grab at lightning bugs that started to dot the dim evening with their light. Cullen tried to focus on their tinkling laughter instead of the heat he felt where Dorian’s shoulder, bare in the tank he wore to combat the warmth of the day, pressed gently into his.

The first few blasts were okay. Cullen liked the way they colored light lit upon Dorian’s features, illuminating his impressive profile, emphasizing the sharpness of his jaw and cheekbones. But Cullen felt the reverberation of each firework in his chest, and what started as mild discomfort turned into what felt like a heart that wasn’t beating quite right and a sheen of sweat that didn’t come from the summer heat.

Cullen didn’t know when he’d started gripping Dorian’s arm as he stared up at the fireworks, not really seeing them anymore. He didn’t know how many times Dorian had repeated his name before placing a hand over the one Cullen had on him, finally bring Cullen back to the present.

“We can go,” Dorian said. Cullen opened his mouth like he was going to protest, but Dorian cut him off with a shake of his head. “Let’s go somewhere… quieter.” 

He stood and extended a hand down to Cullen to help pull him from the ground, but then he didn’t let go as they wound their way out of the park. Both of them ignored the way that Cullen would flinch at the resounding booms, even as they slowly got farther away.

“I’m sorry,” Cullen said, glad the red in his cheeks likely wasn’t visible in the low lighting. He was sorry he’d messed up their date-not-date with his _weirdness_. “I’m only a few blocks away. I should just head home.”

Another shake of the head from Dorian. “I insist you let me walk you home,” Dorian said. “I am nothing if not a gentleman.” There was a wink. There was one upturned corner of Dorian’s mouth. There was a squeeze to the hand of Cullen’s that Dorian had yet to drop.

It’s how Cullen found himself on the couch in his apartment with Dorian, two forgotten beers sitting on the coffee table before them. Dorian rested his hand gently on Cullen’s neck, thumb grazing the stubble on his jaw. He leaned in, but there was a pause where Dorian’s eyes asked an unspoken _may I?_ Cullen gave a nod of his head so faint that he thought Dorian might have missed it. 

Dorian did not miss it. 

\--

Dorian stayed long enough to make sure Cullen was going to be alright on his own, face showing the worry he felt despite Cullen’s insistence he’d be just fine. He’d taken Cullen’s hands in his, idly playing with his fingers as they stood before the door, hesitant to leave after what had happened. With the fireworks _and_ with the kiss. 

“And you’ll text me tomorrow? Let me know you’re fine?” It was less of a request than Dorian made it sound like it was.

Cullen nodded his head. He would’ve been more annoyed at someone fretting over him if he wasn’t so bewildered by it. Dorian had seen him have a near breakdown in the park and he hadn’t run away. In fact he’d kissed Cullen and even though he’d offered to stay a while longer, there was no ulterior motive there. Just honest concern. _Care_.

Dorian kissed him again, too. Right before leaving, a chaste thing was pressed right over the scar through Cullen’s upper lip, over the scar that Dorian had admittedly always been curious about, but never dared ask about. The soft smile that curled up one side of Dorian’s mouth saw Cullen wanting to press his own lips to it, but he let Dorian go instead. Another time.

And that thought alone startled Cullen. That he wanted there to be ‘another time.’ He’d kissed Dorian and found that he wanted to again, that the building tension that had been between them wasn’t the only thing that made Cullen think he might be interested in Dorian.

Cullen plopped back down on the couch after Dorian left, polishing off the rest of his now-warm beer with a grimace. He scrubbed a hand over his face, thinking of all the ways he could fuck this up for himself. He pinched the bridge of his nose, willing himself not to be the human disaster that would let any of the ways come to pass.

\--

The inevitable happened. There’s only ever one person who ever calls him, “Curly!”

Varric’s voice cut through the hum of the bar as he made a beeline over to where Cullen stood at a high top, Dorian perched on the stool next to him. 

Dorian, who had been leaning in, hand pressed to the small of Cullen’s back, lips brushing his ear as he suggested that maybe they should get out of here and—Had been cut off by the approach of the stocky man who now stood before them. But the annoyance of that changed to amusement as he watched the way Cullen’s face scrunched at the clearly hated nickname.

His eyebrows raised and he mouthed _Curly?_ at Cullen only to be met with a very firm, “No.”

Cullen sighed. “I take it that means Cassandra is here too?” 

Sure enough she was headed toward them, a pint glass held in either hand, one of which she handed off to Varric. She looked entirely too smug, telling Varric, “I believe you’ll be buying the next round,” with a clear nod at and Cullen and Dorian. Cullen didn’t even want to know what exactly that was in reference to.

“I thought you two were seeing a movie tonight,” Cullen stated almost accusatorily. It had been the reason he thought the bar would be neutral, safe tonight. 

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were _trying_ to avoid us,” Varric laughed. Cullen scoffed as if that wasn’t exactly what he was meaning to do.

“This is Dorian,” Cullen said by way of introduction and subject change. “My—” They hadn’t discussed this yet, not in the slightest. “Chess partner.”

More raised eyebrows, and not just from Dorian this time. The hand still on Cullen’s back fell away so that Dorian could shake hands with the others. Cassandra. Varric. Old friends.

“You definitely don’t look like you’re cashing in on social security benefits,” Varric joked, surveying Dorian with his eyes. 

Dorian turned to Cullen for an explanation and Cullen just sighed again before telling him, “They’ve been convinced that I’ve been lying to them about you, and that you’re really some aging retiree, and not—” Cullen cut himself off with a gesture at Dorian and a shrug. “—You know.” The most beautiful man he’d ever laid eyes on.

“So you talk about me, hm?” Dorian nudged Cullen with his hip, smile flashing even brighter as red started to creep into his _chess partner’s_ cheeks. “I don’t know if I’m more flattered by that, or upset that you clearly have not done justice to my charm and good looks if there is a doubt in their minds.”

Even Cassandra couldn’t fully keep the smile from her lips. 

Later, when Dorian was spinning some tale to Cassandra—sufficiently ridiculous enough to have her eyebrows shooting up—Varric leaned over to Cullen saying, “I thought you didn’t date.”

Cullen just frowned. 

\--

Cullen's friends like Dorian. Cullen likes Dorian. So naturally, Cullen started to push Dorian away. Because nothing with Cullen was ever allowed to be easy, so why should dating Dorian be that way. And why wait and let Dorian figure that out on his own, why delay the inevitable.

He’s surly and irritable, and that’s on his best days. The majority of his time is still consumed by his work, and what time he isn’t glued to his desk in the office is spent thinking about how he should be. Cullen thinks the apology texts he shoots to Dorian after days of silence on his end have to be getting pretty meaningless at this point.

But Dorian is persistent, and above all, he is patient. Something that Cullen was surprised to find in their time together.

Dorian doesn’t push when Cullen tells him he can’t spend the night while not offering up the explanation that it’s because he doesn’t want Dorian there when he wakes up thrashing after yet another nightmare. Dorian sends simple texts saying _thinking of you_ even when Cullen has left him high and dry on the communication front for days on end. Dorian doesn’t get mad when Cullen says he needs to leave the event they’re at _now_ because it has suddenly become too much, only slips his hand into Cullen’s and gives him the kindest smile ever seen as he leads them out.

Dorian is too good for him.

It’s Cullen’s constant thought as he gazes across the chessboard or down the bar or to the other end of his second-hand sofa only to see the soft smile spread onto Dorian’s lips, fondness lighting up his eyes. And Cullen has to fight down the urge to end it right then and there. Cullen thinks he’s being selfish, clinging to something that shouldn’t be his, to something he doesn’t deserve, all because he’s found someone who will put up with his bullshit.

Sometimes he wonders if Dorian can tell that’s what he’s thinking. There’s something in the worried glances that Dorian can’t keep at bay that somehow seem to speak to what Cullen is hiding in his thoughts. The squeeze that Dorian gives to his hand seems to convey that he has no desire to let go, but sometimes… Cullen really thinks he should.

\--

They have it out one night, and Cullen thinks this is definitely it. The moment he loses Dorian forever. 

He doesn’t know how the choice between Thai or Indian food for dinner spiraled into this blowout, but they were _definitely_ going to be late to Varric’s birthday party now. They’re honest-to-whatever-god screaming at each other at one point. Dorian is frustrated—frustrated with Cullen—there’s no denying it.

“Then go,” Cullen tells him flatly, resolved to the reality. It’s what he’s been expecting all along. People can only ever put up with him for so long, not that he blames them. It’s why Cullen never lets himself get attached to anyone in the first place. If you don’t get past the first date, you never ran the risk of falling in—

“Excuse me?” Dorian asks, looking like Cullen suggested he grow a second head or even worse, shave his mustache. His tone is enough to bring Cullen out of the mental spiral he was careening down.

“Why wouldn’t you leave?” Cullen asks as if it’s the most obvious thing, folding his arms across his chest like he’s daring Dorian say anything that implies that it’s not. “I know I don’t make this easy for you.”

“Getting you to talk to me isn’t easy,” Dorian starts after a long drawn out sigh. “Getting you to focus on the positive, to slow down… That isn’t easy.”

Cullen’s eyes drop to the floor. Dorian is only serving to prove his point further. Why wouldn’t Dorian walk away? He’s withdrawn, pessimistic, and—

“But Cullen…” Dorian continues, cutting through Cullen’s extensive list of reasons why he’s the worst. He’s crossing the literal distance that Cullen has put between them in a few cautious steps, he’s tilting Cullen’s head up with fingers under his chin so that their eyes meet. The softest smile is on his lips and this is _not_ the look of someone planning on walking out on him forever, Cullen thinks. “Loving you has always been easy.”

“You _love—?_ ” It seems so impossible that Cullen can’t even get out the full thought.

“I do,” Dorian confirms. His lips are gentle as they press to the scarred corner of his mouth.

And that’s the first time that Cullen thinks that maybe, one day, he would like to hear Dorian say those last words again in another context.

**Author's Note:**

> we will be back to our regularly scheduled Light in the Dark posting _soon_ ,  
> but hopefully this is enjoyable in the mean time!!


End file.
